Kenyan violence escalates on news of assassination

Wednesday

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Mugabe Were, a freshman parliamentarian, could have been one of the keys to unlocking Kenya's crisis, but yesterday he was shot dead in his driveway.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Mugabe Were, a freshman parliamentarian, could have been one of the keys to unlocking Kenya's crisis, but yesterday he was shot dead in his driveway.

Were, 39, was an opposition politician who had resisted his party's often belligerent talk. He had married a woman of another ethnic group, built a footbridge in a slum with his own money and sponsored teenage mothers to go to college. As Kenya slid into chaos this past month after a disputed presidential election in December, he shuttled between leaders of different ethnic groups and was organizing a peace march the night before he died.

"Whoever did this," said Elizabeth Mwangi, a friend, "has killed the dreams of many."

The details of his death are sketchy, but the killing appears to have been an intended hit.

The news of his killing spread fast, with opposition supporters rioting across Nairobi, the capital.

In the widespread troubles that have erupted since the election, Kenyans are literally ripping their country apart, uprooting railroad tracks, chopping down telephone poles, burning government offices and looting schools.

Militias from opposing ethnic groups are battling in several towns, and Kenyan army helicopters fired rubber bullets at crowds yesterday to disperse them. There have been reports of forced circumcisions and beheadings.

The economy is paralyzed, and more than 800 people have been killed.

According to Were's guard and family members, he had just pulled up to his gate around midnight and was waiting in his Mercedes for the gate to open when another car drew alongside him.

"I heard a beep," said Were's wife, Agnes. "And then two loud shots. I ran out and saw my husband bleeding and people were yelling to me, 'He's still breathing, he's still breathing!' But when I got him to the hospital, he was dead."

Opposition supporters deemed the killing a political assassination, intended to intimidate Kenya's opposition movement, which is challenging the election that Kenya's president, Mwai Kibaki, narrowly won. Police officials investigating the death say they are ruling nothing out.

A huge crowd formed in front of Were's ranch house yesterday morning and built roadblocks of burning tires and heavy stones. It was the first time that rioters had reached an affluent neighborhood in Nairobi, and it was not just rowdy unemployed youth taking part. Bespectacled men in suits lit fires in the street.

"This is how we express our outrage," said social worker Evans Muremi, who stacked tires while wearing a jacket and tie.

Kenya has long been a violent place. Mob justice was common even before the disputed vote, with crowds routinely stoning to death suspected robbers. The same is true for ethnic tensions, which always have existed.

Most deaths in the past month have been the result of ethnically driven clashes, which seem to be provoking a spiraling cycle of revenge.

The crisis also is laying bare the shortcomings of Kenya's poorly paid security forces, who often respond either too harshly or too feebly. Nearly two weeks ago, they shot an unarmed demonstrator at point-blank range in front of rolling TV cameras. Yesterday, they drove past a crowd of young men pulling down a telephone pole in front of Were's house and did nothing.

There is also a crisis of leadership. Top politicians are arguing about who is to blame for the violence more than they are working together to stop it.

Yesterday, Kibaki was scheduled to begin formal negotiations with Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, who says the elections were rigged.

Kofi Annan, the former U.N. secretary-general, has been in Kenya for a week trying to bring the two sides together. So far, neither has budged.

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